Global effort to capture carbon emissions takes hit

Thursday, 10 October 2013 18:32

Despite progress in the global effort to capture carbon emissions from power plants and industrial facilities, the number of global large-scale projects aimed at capturing carbon declined from 75 to 65 in 2012, according to a new report.

The Global CCS Institute, an environmental research organization established with funding by the Australian government in 2009, said Thursday that while efforts to implement carbon capture and storage (CCS) techniques witnessed some new projects in the last year, the net decrease was a worrisome trend for long-term efforts to reduce the negative impact of climate change.

"Urgent action is required to limit, alleviate and, where possible, reverse the damaging effects of the rise in temperature of our planet,” Brad Page, CEO of the institute, said in a press release. "Crucially, this means employing, without favor, appropriate climate change mitigation technologies — and this includes CCS."

CCS is the process by which emissions from a CO2-emitting source like a power plant are caught and stored — often under a geologic formation — before they are able to enter the earth’s atmosphere. It is seen as a possible way to mitigate the effects of climate change.